长宇宙系列文顺序 经典科幻文学:《生命 宇宙及一切》第10章3

经典科幻文学:《生命 宇宙及一切》第10章3  

Found it
he said. We can lose all this rubbish. Just don’t nod
that’s all.
Now
let us bow our heads in payment
intoned the voice
and then said it again
much faster and backwards.
Lights came and went
the pillars disappeared
the man gabled himself backwards into nothing
the Universe snappily reassembled itself around them.
You get the gist? said Slartibartfast.
I’m astonished
said Arthur
and bewildered.
I was asleep
said Ford
who floated into view at this point. Did I miss anything?
They found themselves once again teetering rather rapidly on the edge of an agonizingly high cliff. The wind whipped out from their faces and across a bay on which the remains of one of the greatest and most powerful space battle-fleets ever assembled in the Galaxy was briskly burning itself back into existence. The sky was a sullen pink
darkening via a rather curious colour to blue and upwards to black. Smoke billowed down out of it at an incredible lick. Events were now passing back by them almost too quickly to be distinguished
and when
a short while later
a huge star-battleship rushed away from them as if they’d said “boo”
they only just recognized it as the point at which they had e in.
But now things were too rapid
a video-tactile blur which brushed and jiggled them through centuries of galactic history
turning
isting
flickering. The sound was a mere thin thrill.
Periodically through the thickening jumble of events they sensed appalling catastrophes
deep horrors
cataclysmic shocks
and these were always associated with certain recurring images
the only images which ever stood out clearly from the avalanche of tumbling history: a wicket gate
a small hard red ball
hard white robots
and also something less distinct
something dark and cloudy.
But there was also another sensation which rose clearly out of the thrilling passage of time.
Just as a slow series of clicks when speeded up will lose the definition of each individual click and gradually take on the quality of a sustained and rising tone
so a series of individual impressions here took on the quality of a sustained emotion and yet not an emotion. If it was an emotion
it was a totally emotionless one. It was hatred
implacable hatred. It was cold
not like ice is cold
but like a wall is cold. It was impersonal
not as a randomly flung fist in a crowd is impersonal
but like a puter-issued parking summons is impersonal. And it was deadly again
not like a bullet or a knife is deadly
but like a brick wall across a motorway is deadly.
And just as a rising tone will change in character and take on harmonics as it rises
so again
this emotionless emotion seemed to rise to an unbearable if unheard scream and suddenly seemed to be a scream of guilt and failure.
And suddenly it stopped.